Fiat Ferroviaria

Fiat Ferroviaria was the rail division of FIAT of Italy. It was founded in 1880 as Società Nazionale Officine di Savigliano.[1] Fiat Ferroviaria began building locomotives in the 1930s. It became part of FIAT in 1970. Fiat Ferroviaria acquired the rail business of SIG of Switzerland in 1995 forming the subsidiary Fiat-Sig.[1] The company had previously owned Argentine company Materfer until 1998,[2] which now operates as an independent company.

Following the success of the ETR 450 series introduced in Italy in 1988 (the 401 series introduced in 1976 consisted of only 2 trainsets and never operated regular commercial service, working more like an "on-wheel laboratory"), tilting systems including bogies, traction, electric and electronic equipment were ordered by several countries:

In 2001 also Virgin Trains ordered new tilting trainsets (Class 390), but Fiat Ferroviaria was sold to Alstom in 2000. For this reason they were sold under the "Alstom" brand, although the technology was still the same developed by Fiat Ferroviaria.

Directly or indirectly, 18 countries throughout the world applied the Italian Fiat Ferroviaria tilting technology to their trains, including United States and China.